


Theater is Becoming a Lost Art (Like Bowhunting But Less Bloody)

by Nevcolleil



Category: High School Musical (Movies), Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28419270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: East High is a picture-perfect school in a picture-perfect town full of picture-perfect children. Dean could almost shoot himself in the head with the sawed-off hidden in the secret compartment of his trunk, but doubts he could switch out the salt-rounds with real ammo before someone saw and started screaming.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Theater is Becoming a Lost Art (Like Bowhunting But Less Bloody)

**Author's Note:**

> This is unfinished. Moving here for posterity.

New Mexico has to be one of the worst places Dean has ever lived.

It’s hot enough outside to make working up a sweat easy, but not hot enough to make hunting howler demons less difficult. It takes hours to lure them up out of their nice, warm burrows and – of course – Dad bought a ranch that is just crawling with the little bastards.

They’re within driving distance of Vegas (well, a-lot-of-driving distance) but Dad’s threatened to kill Dean if he tries hustling in a real casino. Even worse – he’s promised to take away Dean’s car if Dean thinks of trying it.

And Sammy got that growth spurt he’s been wishing for since the fourth grade. So now Dean has to look up at Sam, and see the shit smirking down at him - unless Dean’s already dropped him on his ass, which is fun but unhealthy. Sam’s gotten better at getting back at Dean when Dean’s pissed him off, and Dad’s gotten grumpier and grumpier since the doctors told him he’d have to take it easy until he’s through with rehab. A full six months from now, at least.

Hence the staying in one place for so long. And Dad’s lack of patience “for any of you boys’ shit. This prank business ends now, ya hear?”

New Mexico is going to suck, Dean’s decided the very first week.

High school doesn’t help Dean’s situation any. If there’s one thing that Dean and Sam and their father have come to agree on over the years, it’s that school never helps. Nosy teachers, angry principals, well-meaning counselors… Dean’s dad has met, and thoroughly pissed off, at least one of each on every campus Dean has ever attended.

Things are a little better here. They won’t be going on any hunting trips until Dad gets better, so there won’t be any concerned calls about too many absences from any of the teachers. They made a killing on that insurance scam in Atlanta, so Dean and Sam both have all the materials they’ll need for the school year – and Sam will be ridiculously well-dressed (Dean likes his faded jeans and vintage t-shirts, thank you very much.)

Also, Dad is going to be spending his days in therapy at the local rehabilitation clinic – or hanging out in the hospital lobby, waiting for Dean and Sam to get out of school. So he won’t be available to “help” should any other problems arise.

The first day Sam walks from the junior high campus to the parking lot where Dean is waiting by the Impala, Dean knows those problems are just waiting to rear their heads.

There are ball players out on the court, playing a friendly game, as cheerleaders watch from the benches. There are girls walking, in giggling groups, to the school buses parked behind the main school building and guys ribbing one another good-naturedly as they pile into Hummers and Porsches and pick-up trucks.

East High is a picture-perfect school in a picture-perfect town full of picture-perfect children. Dean could almost shoot himself in the head with the sawed-off hidden in the secret compartment of his trunk, but doubts he could switch out the salt-rounds with real ammo before someone saw and started screaming.

“How was your first day?” Sam asks when he’s near enough to speak. He is smiling and happy in his new clothes, with his new backpack slung over one shoulder. Sam can handle picture-perfect, about as well as Dean handles real life. He could even fit in in a place like this without making it seem creepy, but Dean doesn’t like where those thoughts lead so he doesn’t think them.

“Great!” Dean smirks in a parody of cheer. “Paperwork after paperwork after cramming a thousand textbooks into a locker that smells like feet. Good times,” Dean says sarcastically, but he doesn’t dampen Sam’s enthusiasm.

Sam smirks back at him, slipping into the passenger side of the Chevy as Dean opens the driver-side door.

“I figured you didn’t make it to any classes today.”

“Huh. Why is that?”

Dean puts the key in the ignition and guns his engine. He doesn’t look in the rearview mirror, but he hopes that his baby’s roar was loud enough to spook some Norman Rockwell-knockoff onto his or her picture-perfect ass.

“You don’t have a black eye and you aren’t in detention,” Sam says, now smiling. “You either missed your classes or slept through them without getting caught.”

Dean pops a little ACDC into the tape deck as they pull out of the emptying parking lot, frowning.

“Hey! I can make it through one day without any trouble, Sammy,” he says, feigning indignance. Dean can last a day at school without any “incidents”… he just can’t rightly remember if he ever has.

Sam snorts. “Sure. Twenty bucks says tomorrow will be different.”

Dean laughs at him. “Dude. As if you could back it up. Penniless street urchin.”

Dean turns left as Sam punches him in the right shoulder. “You’re just as much of an urchin as I am,” Sam says – and, then, belatedly: “And don’t call me Sammy.”

Dean smirks.

“Besides… I’m good for it.” Sam reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a wad of crumpled bills. He looks prouder of himself than he did the time he’d convinced Dad that Dean had run all of their anointed altar cloths through the washing machine. Dean’s caught between gaping and grinning.

“What- Where-”

Sam looks evil. “East Juniors are easy,” he says.

Dean throws his head back and laughs. “That’s my boy,” he praises his brother. “Alright, you’re on.”

In such a sugar-sweet place… it can’t be too hard for Dean to keep his nose clean, can it?

Day Two at East High, Dean meets Sam again in the parking lot – on time and showing no signs of damage, to himself or others, so Sam has that twenty out before he even reaches the car.

He hesitates, though, when he gets close enough to see the dark expression on Dean’s face. When Dean spots him and immediately begins to scowl harder, Sam considers turning back and sleeping under the bleachers in the EJH auditorium.

“Uh… Hi?” he says.

“Don’t ‘hi’ me,” Dean grumbles, yanking open his door. “Just get in the car.”

Dean is fuming mad, which doesn’t happen often. Dean gets annoyed. Dean gets cranky. When Sam insults his precious mullet rock collection, Dean pouts - although he won’t admit it. But Dean is rarely furious, even on a hunt that’s gone sideways, where the eventual kill is bound to make him feel better.

Sam slips into the passenger seat slowly, then has to scramble to get his door closed as Dean is already peeling out of his parking space.

“Dean! What is your problem?” Sam shrieks, grabbing onto the dashboard when Dean takes a sharp curve too fast.

“My problem? What is my problem?” Dean’s voice is a little high, a little loud, and Sam is actually starting to be afraid. Not of Dean, because- Well, it’s Dean. But of what might have happened to Dean. Or – Sam thinks, feeling a little shiver of panic – to Dad.

But Dean takes a deep breath and calms down a bit. He lets off the gas a little, then reaches into the pocket of his leather jacket and tosses a folded sheet of paper into Sam’s lap.

“Read that,” he snaps.

Sam unfolds the paper, wondering how a piece of paper could have pissed Dean off like this. When he sees what’s written on the paper, Sam frowns.

“It’s your class sched-” Finally, Sam catches on and has to bite his lip.

Dean is nodding vigorously. “Uh-huh. Yeah. You proud of yourself, funny man?”

Sam is seriously straining something by trying not to laugh.

“Oh my God, Dean…” Sam says, huffing a little to hold back the giggles. “Tell me you read the list I gave you before you filled out the registration forms.”

“I was distracted!” Dean yells, taking his hands off the wheel a moment, to gesture in the air. “The school secretary is, like, a Double D, Sammy. How the hell was I supposed to know I was signing up to take drama?”

Dean says the word as though he’s talking about getting an appendectomy. Twice.

And that does it. Sam bursts into peals of laughter.

Dean squeezes the steering wheel beneath his fists. “It isn’t funny! Drama, Sam? Drama.”

“I… didn’t… think you’d… that you’d-” Sam stutters as he can. He’s holding his sides and practically rolling.

“Drama, Sammy,” Dean insists. “As in acting. On stage. With costumes.” He looks like he’s going to be sick.

Sam shakes his head, breathing nasally. “Stop!” He’s certain that he’s going to die laughing.

Dean’s lips twitch, anger abating somewhat.

But not completely. “What am I going to do in a drama class all year?” Dean asks, scowl returning.

There is an answer on the tip of Sam’s tongue, but then Sam looks at Dean’s face and changes his mind.

“Transfer out?” he offers.

For a second Dean looks murderous again. “All the other electives are full,” he tells Sam.

“Woodshop?”

“Full.”

“Autoshop?”

“Dude, that was my first choice. Full. What part of all do you not understand?”

Sam can’t resist. He maintains the straightest face he can manage and suggests, “Home Ec? I know you like to cook and-”

Dean glances at him and Sam shuts up.

“I’m sure there are a lot of pretty girls who take Home Ec,” Sam says, to placate.

Dean rolls his head on his shoulders. “Yeah. Too many. It’s full.”

Sam shakes his head. He’s actually starting to feel sorry for Dean, but he’s still amused. He hasn’t gotten Dean this good since the altar cloth incident. And, really, it was about time. Dean deserved something after that bottle of Nair in Fort Worth. Sometimes Sam worries that his hair is never going to grow back.

“Well… It can’t be that bad. You made it through the first day alright. Right?”

Sam holds up the twenty dollar bill like a white flag. Dean snatches it out of his hand.

“The Drama teacher’s a demon,” Dean says. “I swear to God. And I sit behind Barbie before her nose job. And? The kid next to me? Was wearing pink.”

Sam rubs his stomach, thinking that maybe he has strained something. He frowns. “So. Lots of-”

“He,” Dean interrupts, glaring at Sam. “He was wearing pink.”

Sam smirks. “Oh.”

“And the girl behind me kept making… googley eyes at the jock up front.”

“Googley eyes?”

Dean misses Sam’s raised eyebrow. “Yeah. And he was making ‘em right back at her. It was nauseating. I wanted to hit something. A lot.”

“But you didn’t,” Sam says, trying to point out something positive. “At least it couldn’t get any worse.”

Dean just shakes his head. They pull into the parking lot at the hospital where their father is waiting, but Dean just sits there for a moment, staring out the windshield. Sam frowns.

“What?”

Dean squirms in his seat. “The play they’re working on… in class,” he starts.

“Yeah?”

“It’s a musical.”

Sam jumps out of the car as fast as he can, hoping he can keep the rest of his laughter bottled up inside until they’re safely inside the hospital with their father between them.

Ryan Evans used to get what his cousin Brent would call a “mancrush” on the other boys in his class. And on his polo team, and from the staff at Lava Springs…

He’d used the term only once, and in front of his sister, before Sharpay corrected him.

“A mancrush, Ryan?” she laughed. “No. A “mancrush” is when a ridiculously straight man gets all tingly for another ridiculously straight man, and just doesn’t want to say so.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and smirked. “You are neither ridiculously straight nor a man, Ry. So I think the mancrush theory is out.”

Ryan stayed mad at Sharpay for a full week after that – a record for him. Still, he figures she’d had a point. They were only fourteen at the time (so “boycrush” would have been a more accurate term). And since then, Ryan has become pretty certain that – no – he is not ridiculously straight. Not even reasonably straight, truth be told.

The point is, back when Ryan thought he was only “crushing” on members of his own sex, it didn’t really matter who he chose as the object of his affections. Chances were they would never know how he really felt, and Ryan wasn’t likely to do more than stare at a boy he liked, when the boy wasn’t looking, and wonder why he was staring.

Now Ryan has a bit more experience – and enlightenment – under his belt. So he’s realized the potential danger in developing feelings for someone, man or boy, who is incapable of returning them.

Simultaneously, Ryan’s realized that his taste in men – quite simply – sucks.

Ryan can spot the ridiculously straight boys (or, at least, the most potentially ridiculously-straight boys) from a mile away. The problem is that it never seems to help. He sees trouble coming… and has run out to meet it before he can stop himself.

Ryan’s senior year at East High, Trouble walks into Drama class, third period, a few weeks after the start of the term. And sits across from Ryan, behind Sharpay, in faded denim and biker boots.

“Ah, Mr. Winchester, you are finally with us!” Mrs. Darbus announces after the bell, beaming at her new student. Who slouches in his seat and gives her a sort of salute. “Class, we have a new student this year. Dean Winchester. Let’s all welcome Mr. Winchester into our little thespian family!”

Half the class joins Mrs. Darbus in clapping, the quiet applause not quite drowning out the sound of Darbus’s costume jewelry tinkling and a group of girls giggling in the corner. Troy waves in Dean’s direction and Chad, who was turned towards Ryan’s desk at the start of class (while they discussed last Saturday’s game) anyway, nods.

Ryan froze about the time Dean walked by, the mild scent of leather and motor oil accompanying him, and now tries to pull off Chad’s nonchalant nod without stuttering into a stare. He hates mentally grouping himself with Shar’s giggle-squad back in the corner – or even Shar, who started fluffing her hair and preening the moment a new face had appeared in the window of the classroom door. But- Dean? The name is appropriate. He only needs a James in front to complete the picture of a textbook “bad boy”. He’s got the leather jacket and blond hair… He certainly has the attitude. And Ryan is entirely, albeit reluctantly, intrigued.

Dean barely spares the class a quick, uncomfortable glance and an almost-smile. “Hey,” he says to no-one in particular. Then Mrs. Darbus is moving onto the day’s discussion of visual irony and incorporating that into this year’s dramatic production, and everyone goes back to business as usual. Troy and Gabriella spend the class flirting with each other from across the room. Chad tries not to pop his gum too loudly and Sharpay sneaks compact-checks every time Mrs. Darbus turns her back to the room.

Ryan takes notes, trying not to watch Dean looking around the room and searching for some paper and a pencil in the backpack he’d carried in. It doesn’t work. Dean has to bend over in his seat to get to the backpack, and when he does Ryan has some difficulty ignoring the shift of leather and denim that’s going on right beside him. He also notices the pendant that dangles from Dean’s neck – a small, gold figure of a horse Ryan thinks he’s seen before, strung on a simple black cord.

When Dean looks up and finds Ryan looking back, Ryan smiles, holding out a sheet of paper – less for the sake of playing the good Samaritan than to mask the fact that he’s just been caught checking out the new guy.

Dean hesitates a moment. Then whispers a casual “Thanks” as he nods and takes the paper. His fingers brush Ryan’s for a split second as he does.

Later Ryan will read over the complete gibberish scribbled on his paper and think that he’s the lamest (albeit best-dressed) senior at East High – possibly anywhere. But by this time he has bigger problems to worry about.

“Ryan, darling, a moment please?” Mrs. Darbus asks, beaming at him as he tries to follow his fellow classmates out of the room.

Sharpay keeps moving, tossing her hair and a glance over her shoulder, one finely-shaped brow raised. Gabi and Troy smile while Chad smirks at Ryan, making faces. The three of them are less immune to Mrs. Darbus’s quirky brand of charm than Sharpay and Ryan are – or perhaps just less accustomed to it.

Dean, Ryan feels even lamer for having noticed, was the first student out of his seat when the bell rang.

“Yes, Mrs. Darbus?” Ryan asks as he reaches Darbus’s desk and the others file out into the crowd headed for fourth period.

“I noticed you lending my newest pupil a hand and I just wanted to commend you,” Mrs. Darbus begins. “I’m afraid that young man will need all the help he can get adjusting to the demands of participating in an involved theatrical production.”

“Um… Sure,” Ryan agrees.

Mrs. Darbus peeks over Ryan’s shoulder as if checking that no one else is within earshot and Ryan glances in the same direction, immediately uncomfortable with the possibilities of why.

“You know, I ran into him this morning in the office. He was very distraught. The poor dear looked positively shaken when I asked him if he had any experience in the performing arts.” She frowns.

Ryan fidgets, shifting the strap of his backpack across his shoulder. An irrational, paranoid part of his mind wonders anxiously why his teacher might think that he’d be interested in hearing this. While an even warier part fear that this entire discussion is leading…

“Perhaps you could show him about a bit. Take him under your wing, as it were. At least in catching him up to speed as to where we’re at with Lefty,” Mrs. Darbus suggests, smiling hopefully.

Ryan feels a sinking lack of surprise. “I… could do that,” he saus cooperatively, knowing that any hedging would only raise questions about why he would consider saying no.

“Excellent!” Mrs. Darbus beams again. “That’s so good of you. I knew you wouldn’t turn down a classmate in need!”

Ryan gives her his most faux-sincere smile, but inwardly he sighs. No, “turning down” won’t be Ryan’s problem where sexy, mysterious transfer students are concerned. Ryan’s certain.


End file.
